Apple TV+ has renewed its hit science-fiction show Silo for two more seasons. However, the show will end at that point after telling the full story of the Hugh Howey novels on which it is based.
“Excited to share that Silo will be back for a third and fourth season! We are thrilled to support the imagination and inspiration of the U.K. as they continue to create world-class films and series,” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote on X, perhaps in an effort to promote the creative industry in the U.K.
Apple does not share viewership data for its shows and films. However, shortly after the show premiered last year, Nielsen said that Silo was a breakout hit. According to Nielsen data, the series debuted as the platform’s number-one drama. Viewership is said to have increased in the following weeks. (We loved it at the beginning, too.)
The second season of this dystopian drama is now streaming on Apple TV+, with new episodes arriving every Friday until January 17. The Silo depicts a future in which there are only 10,000 people left on the planet and they’ve been kept in a mile-deep bunker to protect them from a toxic surface. Anyone who tries to figure out when and why this silo was built ends up meeting their death, so there’s clearly more going on there than first appears.
What is Apple Arcade
Apple originally released Apple Arcade with the promise of high-quality, exclusive games that could be played on nearly every device the company makes. This includes iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Apple TV (though you need a controller for the latter). Over time, Apple also started allowing games that were originally launched in the App Store to be played on Apple TV, provided they meet certain criteria. All Apple Arcade games are ad-free and have no in-app purchases, which really helps differentiate its offering from the flood of low-quality games in the App Store.
Although Apple Arcade launched with a pretty great lineup, additional games have unfortunately come fewer and fewer in recent years. Apple has also removed several games from the service, including some great ones like Sayonara Wild Hearts, Cozy Grove, Assemble with Care, Shinsekai: Into the Depths and many more. It’s a reminder that with a subscription service, things can end at any time.
Although we’re not seeing the same momentum of high-quality original games on Apple Arcade as we saw a few years ago, I still think the service is worth the $7 per month or $50 per year subscription if you do a lot of gaming on your phone.
Some of the best games in the history of the App Store are here (any game with a “plus” sign indicates a game that was originally sold in the App Store and then ported to Apple Arcade), and there are still many great original games worth playing.
It’s worth noting that the “plus” games weren’t designed with Mac or Apple TV playback in mind and therefore only work on an iPhone or iPad. These 16 games are some of the best games you can play, and I plan on trying out many more to add to this list in the future. In the meantime, this should be more than enough to get you started.